1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a dial-up internet facsimile apparatus that receives e-mails connecting to a service provider on the internet using dial-up connection via telephone line.
2. Description of Related Art
Presently, a so-called internet facsimile apparatus, as a facsimile apparatus for professional use, is becoming popular. An internet facsimile apparatus has a transmission function for transmitting an e-mail to a destination by converting scanned original data into an e-mail format, and a reception function for receiving an e-mail of the original data transmitted from the sender via internet. POP (Post Office Protocol) method is known as a reception function of internet facsimile apparatus. This method enables internet facsimile apparatus to access the receiving mailbox and to retrieve e-mails in the mailbox.
On the other hand, there is a market for facsimile apparatus for private use in addition to the one for professional use. In this market, functions and memory capacities of the facsimile apparatus are strictly limited because of the demand for downsizing and lowering the cost of facsimile apparatus, compared to the ones for professional use.
Recently, the internet facsimile apparatus for personal use has been progressing. Especially in the case of the internet facsimile apparatus for personal use, it is difficult to achieve a communication environment in which facsimile apparatus is connected to LAN and e-mails are transmitted and received via a personal mail server. Therefore, it is desirable to use a dial-up connection for connecting to a provider and to receive e-mails using the POP method.
However, the internet facsimile apparatus for personal use often cannot receive mail data of large size, when using the memory reception, because of the small memory capacity. More specifically, when message data is stored in the memory of the facsimile apparatus, there is a possibility of a memory overflow during the process of retrieving received messages from the mail server of the provider using the POP. When the memory overflows, the receiver can only receive partial message data. Using the POP method, the message remains in the server without being erased unless the message is completely retrieved and the receiving process is finished. Therefore, repeated trials of receiving the message by accessing the provider would still result in repeated memory overflows, and repeating the same process frequently causes unnecessary telephone charges when using public telephone network system.